Wander along any residential street in Japan and before too long you’ll probably come across a pottery statue of a cheery tanuki. Cartoon-like tanuki statues – usually depicted carrying a bottle of sake and sporting an enormous pair of testicles – are omnipresent in Japan, and nowhere more so than in the town of Shigaraki, around an hour and a half from Kyoto.
Tanukis of various sizes stand at the front doors of many homes, offices and shops all over Japan. Called bake danuki in Japanese, these playful statues represent a type of tanuki that are an ancient and much-loved part of Japanese folklore. Bake danuki are believed to bring good luck and fortune, which explains why they’re such a common sight at the entrance of houses and businesses throughout Japan.
Shigaraki, a small rural town in the south of Shiga Prefecture, is synonymous with tanuki. It’s in Shigaraki that the kilns and potteries that produce Japan’s countless bake danuki statues are based.
Thanks to an abundant supply of high quality clay, Shigaraki has been an historic and important centre of pottery in Japan for centuries. The town even has a style of ceramics named after it; Shigaraki ware. Today Shiragaki is tanuki central, with numerous shops selling a mind-boggling range of tanuki statues of all manner of shapes and sizes.
In the real world, tanuki are a breed of raccoon dogs that are endemic to Japan. Shy and reclusive by nature, these largely nocturnal animals bear a resemblance to raccoons or badgers. Yet the tanuki of Japanese folklore have long been portrayed as playful, mischievous and often foolish characters.
Possessing supernatural shape-shifting powers, in many traditional tales tanuki regularly alter their appearance and take on human form. In Japan there are countless folktales in which the central characters are shape-shifting tanuki.
In some the tanuki are benevolent and kind, whilst in others they are much more sinister. Perhaps the most well-known tanuki tale is Pom Poko, the animated film by Studio Ghibli. In Pom Poko a community of tanuki attempt to sabotage the construction of a new housing estate that will destroy the forests that they call home.
The pottery statues of bake danuki typically follow a common style, featuring a playful demeanour and, in the case of the male tanuki, a gigantic scrotum. The giant scrotum is deliberate and is one of the eight characteristics of bake danuki that is believed to bring good fortune.
A tanuki’s oversized testicles are said to bring the promise of good fortune. Meanwhile the tanuki’s sake bottle represents good virtue and the hat on its head protects against misfortune. The tanuki’s wide open eyes are said to help see things clearly in order to make good decisions.
On exiting Shigaraki station you’re instantly greeted by the first sign that tanuki rule this town. A giant five metre tanuki statue, currently decked in a face mask and robes and complete with a public telephone, towers over the entrance to the station.
Just a few metres away is the first of many huge shops in Shigaraki that stock what must be thousands of statues and figurines of bake danuki that are created in the numerous local potteries. Throughout Shigaraki small armies of neatly arranged bake danuki are lined up in front of all of the town’s shops that specialise in ceramic tanukis.
Walking away from the station and into the town centre brings shop after shop of tanuki sellers, each with their own bountiful supply of cheerful, grinning bake danuki.
At the centre of each tends to be a one-off giant tanuki, towering over the rest, as well as the shop building and the car park. Though tanuki are by far the most prominent figurines on sale in Shigaraki, they’re not the only lucky charms in town.
The local potteries also produce plenty of statues of other deities and local legends that are believed to bring good luck and the promise of fortune. Statues of Ebisu, the Japanese God of Luck (and also fisherman) are plentiful too, as are replicas of the other Seven Gods of Fortune, particularly Daikokuten, the God of Commerce.
Colourful amabie statues are also found dotted between the tanuki. According to Japanese folklore the amabie is a yokai who has the face of a bird and the body of a mermaid who can predict epidemics and prevent illness.
Yet it is the tanuki that reign supreme in Shigaraki. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Tanukiya Bunpuku, an udon restaurant located just on the edge of town. Around a 20 minute walk from Shigaraki station, the entrance to the restaurant is through a giant tanuki lying on its side. Relaxing next to the side of the road with his sake bottle by his side, this monster tanuki may be the king of all of Shigaraki’s tens of thousands of bake danuki.
